Source: Inventors and Inventions.

Page 2 of 3

Cereal Science
Lesson Ideas

At the grocery store, challenge students to find a cereal with raisins that doesn't have flakes. A few granola type cereals include raisins and other dried fruits (cherries, strawberries, and so on); most of them have flakes, but a few do not. An interesting experiment is to compare the percentage of raisins that fall to the bottom. Have students do the activity on the next page.

Ask students to note the ingredients of other cereals. Do they observe any patterns? How many main ingredients do most cereals have? In their personal experience, which cereals hold up best in milk? Which have fewer broken bits on the bottom? What else do they like or not like about cereals?

All of this information is useful to know before inventing a brand-new cereal. You might want to hold a contest to design the best tasting cereal (as tasted by a panel of impartial judges), the most economical one that still rates high in taste tests, or the most nutritious one.

Note: As students experiment, they may find that the data aren't always clear cut. For example, raisins may stay mixed in a non-flake cereal if they are shaken one way but not another. Encourage students to replicate (repeat) their results. Also, you might want to redo the experiment using simpler objects such as various-sized marbles and sand. If possible, tour a cereal factory or write to cereal manufacturers such as Kellogg's, Post, and General Mills and ask for information about the machines and steps involved in the production of cereals.

Previous Page

Next Page